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As January got here to an finish, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar struggled to respond to questions on one among her problematic habits: The Florida Republican saved taking credit score for federal investments she’d voted against.
As February involves an finish, the story has returned to the fore. HuffPost reported:
Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) this month celebrated delivering $1.4 million to a kids’s hospital in her district, even attending a photograph op the place she handed over huge checks to management and employees on the Nicklaus Kids’s Hospital. Besides Salazar voted towards the invoice that supplied this cash.
When members rejoice laws they opposed, hoping voters received’t know the distinction, the cynicism is politically fraught: The general public is left with the misunderstanding that these lawmakers did one thing widespread and contributed to a hit story.
However tales like these are worse: The GOP congresswoman issued a press statement this month claiming that she “secured over $1.4 million” in federal funding for a kids’s hospital in Miami. Salazar even appeared in individual on the hospital for a photo-op, delivering outsized checks, after which promoted the occasion through social media.
What the Florida Republican didn't be aware is that, based on her personal press assertion, the funding for the Nicklaus Kids’s Hospital was “part of the Fiscal Year 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act.”
Salazar voted against the Fiscal 12 months 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act, together with practically each different member of the GOP convention.
HuffPost’s report added, “What’s strange is that Salazar is not just trying to take credit for money that she voted against, she openly cites where this funding came from — and it’s very easy to look up her vote on this bill. It’s as if she is just hoping nobody notices.”
All of this comes a month after Jim DeFede, an investigative reporter on the CBS affiliate in Miami, reminded the congresswoman a couple of latest occasion at which Salazar introduced a verify for $650,000 to assist small companies at Florida Worldwide College.
“You voted against the bill that gave the money that you then signed a check for and handed and had a photo op,” DeFede defined.
Salazar claimed not to remember how she voted on the laws.
DeFede also noted that voted towards the CHIPS and Science Act, solely to tout funding from the regulation that benefited her district. In the identical interview, the native CBS reporter reminded Salazar that she additionally voted towards the bipartisan infrastructure regulation, earlier than touting the investments from the regulation that helped Miami Worldwide Airport.
It’s tempting to assume Salazar, following this on-air catastrophe, would’ve discovered a lesson and began taking better care earlier than making an attempt to take credit score for funding she voted towards. Evidently, that didn’t occur.
This put up updates our related earlier coverage.
